The growth of networking and systems' connectivity are some of the major developments in recent decades. Fewer and fewer systems and devices are operated as stand-alone entities, and most of today's systems are increasingly becoming elements in complex networks. This growth in networking allows improved performance and increased flexibility. For example, network devices such as personal computers (PCs) including laptops, data center compute servers including blade servers, printers, routers, switches, voice communication devices, including VoIP phones, video and/or audio devices such as HDTV and audio amplifiers, gaming devices and other devices, are connected together as nodes in communication networks. Networks are designated in a variety of ways, and based on a variety of factors. Network designation may be spatial, based on the scope of connectivity among the network nodes. For example, a network may be designated as a personal area network (PAN), a local area network (LAN), and wide area network (WAN). Network designation may also be based on the backbone connecting technology. For example, a network may be designated as an Ethernet network, a wireless network, and/or a fiber optical network. Some networks are circuit switched and are built around dedicated node-to-node connectivity, wherein a dedicated circuit is created and reserved, when needed, between the communicating nodes. Other nodes are then barred from utilizing the same connection and/or other entities in the network to the extent necessary to maintain the circuit. When such dedicated connectivity is used, implicit requirements for underlying services, for example, type of service, QoS, latency requirements and/or bandwidth provisioning may be met by prior provisioning of the connections. Most networks in use nowadays, however, are based on packet switched networks. In packet switched networks, the sending node simply transmits traffic that is destined for one or more receiving nodes. The traffic comprises packets that contain, in addition to data, other information that enables directing the packets to the receiving nodes. For example, most of today's networks are Internet based networks and utilize various protocols comprising TCP/IP, for example, to facilitate packet switching. In this regard, data is encapsulated into packets that comprise a header portion and a payload portion to enable transporting, addressing and/or routing among various entities within or coupled to the network.
Network infrastructure devices, comprising, for example, switches, routers, hubs and/or wireless access points, are utilized in networks to facilitate forwarding of traffic between sending and receiving nodes. Hubs contain multiple ports, wherein packets arriving at one port are transmitted via all remaining ports. Consequently, hubs are generally operable to perform minimal processing. Switches also comprise multiple ports, but unlike hubs, switches are more actively functional in performing routing operations. For example, switches maintain routing information that enable the switches to determine whether the packets are transmitted via the switch, and if so, to determine the appropriate ports to perform that transmission. Switches may store, generate, and/or maintain addressing related information of accessible network nodes.
Some network infrastructure devices, however, may block traffic. Blocking occurs when a switch reaches a point where it is unable to perform additional switching even though it has not reached its theoretical maximum throughput, which generally is based on the combined maximum speeds of all of its ports.
Computer architecture has evolved not only with regard to higher performance CPUs, but also to provide virtualization such that each physical computer may run multiple operating systems and each operating system may embody one or more related or unrelated applications. In this regard, each instance of an operating system and/or each instance of an operating system with a set of one or more applications may be referred to as a virtual machine. In addition, a plurality of virtual machines may be managed by a central control application, which may be referred to as a hypervisor. A hypervisor may create, run, and delete VMs. Also, a hypervisor may handle resource management such as memory, processor resources, network connectivity and/or control management, such as, start, stop, pause, trace and/or re-start.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.